Neos: A heavy-duty tablet with many capabilities

Sunday

Dec 1, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Interesting new Android tablet from a company we never heard of — Astak. It's called a Neos, costs a bit under $500 and is permanently mounted on an inclined stand. The whole thing is much heavier than a tablet alone, and you wouldn't want to hold it in your lap. In fact, our initial reaction was negative — like, who needs this? Now we love it.

It's like having a small TV in the kitchen — listen to music, watch news and lectures, display recipes as you work, play games. It seems to be waterproof, though we don't want to try dunking it in the sink. Many apps are available offline, others require the Internet, cabled or wireless. It also takes camera cards and has a USB port, which means you can plug in a thumb drive.

Neos uses the Android (Jelly Bean) operating system. You can use any Android apps and play any of the games. If the game allows it, two people can play and the tablet knows whose finger is whose. We tried "Glow Hockey 2," which reminds us of "Pong," the first computer game. If you're thinking of buying this to play two-person games, it's not worth it. Board games are more fun.

Another downside is that Neos has no battery and has to stay plugged in. Joy says that's actually a good feature, because then you know where to find it. She frequently asks: "Have you seen my iPad?"

Neos' sound quality is excellent. We found ourselves listening to online radio and TED talks far more often. Picture quality is so-so. We plugged in our camera card to watch a slide show, but it was better on our computer. It's hard to find Neos on the Web, but you can find it on Amazon by searching "Neos tablet-top."

FLATTENED

Tabletop computers are the latest thing this season. They're flat enough to mount into a coffee table. The ones getting the best reviews are full-fledged Windows 8 computers that cost $900 to $1,800. They have stands — like a kickstand — if you prefer it that way.

The 27-inch Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon is the jazziest and most expensive at $1,800. Two people can play a game like air hockey or monopoly, and the computer knows that your finger is yours and mine is mine. When flattened down, many custom games and apps become available. A new Aura interface lets you spin wheels to choose games and do other neat tricks. But for a much lower cost, around $1,300, we'd go with the Asus Transformer AiO, a Windows 8 tabletop that becomes an Android tablet when you lift it off its dock.

TRANSLATING MOTION

It may be possible to put together an automatic sign-language reader. Put on a necklace that senses hand motions and translates them into sign language and displays the words in text on your phone.

The necklace uses Leap Motion technology. Leap Motion is also a very small $80 box that registers and interprets gestures. It measures about 3 inches long, an inch wide and a half-inch thick. That's pretty small. Two cameras and a motion sensor detect what's going on either with your hands or anything else moving in front of it.

So if you're watching anything, you can wave your hands, wiggle your fingers, make a fist, etc. to make the computer react and do things; it's all about control. At least that is the promise. So far users describing their experiences with the box have given it mixed reviews to say the least. One noted that the device couldn't even tell how many fingers he was showing. There is obviously promise here, and you see such futuristic control displayed in movies and television. A lot of work needs to be done and some of you may want to experiment. This is an open field.

The Portuguese designers of the sign language translator are competing in the TEDx Youth Competition in Sydney.

MUTE THAT CALL

Here's an app for those who get a lot of calls on their cellphones and hate to be interrupted in the middle of an email or a fun game. Call PopOut, for Android phones, mutes the call or rejects it while you keep reading or playing.

TIPS AND TRICKS

•To email a huge bunch of photos, we like the free Picasa from Google. Select all the pictures in a folder by clicking with your right mouse button and choosing "select all." Then email them all in one fell swoop by holding "Ctrl" and the "E" key. (E for email.)

•If someone doesn't answer your email, maybe they never got it. Surprisingly, email doesn't always go through. It apparently happens when you use multiple email addresses in the same Gmail window, and email from other vendors gets lost.